The late Heinz von
Forster was a founder of Cybernetics along with
McCulloch, Wiener and von Neumann. As Director of
the Biological Computer Laboratory from 1958-1975
at University of Illinois he was a leading
supporter of the pioneer English Cyberneticians
working with Alex Andrew, Gordon Pask and Ross
Ashby. There is a great deal of material about
Heinz on the web. A taste of
his writing can be found courtesy of the
International Society for the System Sciences (ISSS)

In 1995 the American Society for Cybernetics
Annual Conference in Chicago took as its theme
"Circularity". Von Foerster produced a six page A5
booklet of his aphorisms and principles which is a
gem. Varioulsy quirky and profound there are
propositions that immediately can be applied and
others requiring further thought. There is some
ambiguity in the orginal and where possible this
has been retained.

Please do get in touch
if you find corrections that can be made.
Pouloide's "Kinematic of Conical Sections"
(Aphorism 28) appears in the original to be series
of tangents and normals to a parabola with a
decreasing focus. Can anyone clarify this?

The nervous system is organized (or it
organizes itself) so as to compute a stable
reality.

The Logic of the World Principle: "The logic
of the world is the logic of descriptions (of the
world)."

Necessity arises from the ability‡ to make
infallible deductions.

Chance arises from the inability to make
infallible inductions.

Paradox:

The orthodox paradoxically is
ontological: when P is true it is false, and
vice versa.

Ontogenetically, however, by
apprehending, P

Truth: "The invention of a liar."

Pouloide: "The Kinematic of Conical
Sections".

Undecidables (in principle):

"The Entscheidungsproblem", Formal systems
(Godel).

"The Analytic Problem" for the Universal
Turing Machine. [See discussion in H.v.F.'s "Metaphysics
of an Experimental Epistemologist". Pask often asserted the concurrent
was not the serial. A later formulation was the impossibility of mapping the kinetic
into the kinematic without difference. R.N.G]

"The Halting Problem" for the Universal
Turing Machine.

"How did the Universe come into being?"

"Am I a part of, or apart from, the
Universe?"

Fishlike creature (in Cybernetics of
Epistemology): "What moves?"

Feedback: "Where does it go?"

Realism

Constructivism

26. Circularities:

Chemical

Lexical

†Our thanks to Dipl.-Ing. Horst Lehrheuer who points out: Heinz von Foerster (HvF) changed the earlier wording of his ethical imperative "Act always so as to increase the number of choices" in a conversation with Bernhard Poerksen (book “The Certainty of Uncertainty,” I think) to:

“I always try to act so as to increase the number of choices.”

This change is significant since the new wording is now fully synergistic with HvF’s idea of separating ethics (which is only about the “I”) from morality/morals (about the “Thou/You”); a distinction that was very important to Heinz von Foerster as he stressed at several occasions in his later published conversations.